A Deceiving Passion

The Beginning

"I'm gonna have you smell this Valerian oil," Freya assured, handing her the small vial.

Stevie took a gentle sniff, finding it quite relaxing and then she handed it back.

"This aids in mental anxiety and helps people with insomnia..."

She nodded.

"Okay... I want you to completely relax your body," she explained, holding up a pendulum. "I want you to keep your eyes only on this crystal and I as I count down from ten, I want you to relax further and further as you focus on the sound of my voice and only the sound of my voice. When I snap my fingers, you'll sleep. Got it?"

She agreed.

The woman began swinging the pendulum; "Ten..."

The blonde kept her eyes on the pendulum, watching as it swung back and forth in front of her face.

"Nine... You're already getting sleepy."

The woman obeyed.

"Eight... Seven... Six... Five... You're following only the sound of my voice."

It was like a daze.

"Four. When I snap my fingers, you're going to sleep so soundly... Three... Two... One," she snapped her fingers.

On cue, she was out like a light and her breathing shifted a tad.

She stopped her pendulum and she set it to the side. "Can you hear me, Stevie?"

"Yes," she stated, eyes shut.

"Great... I want you to tell me about how you met your husband, Lindsey. You said you were seventeen, right?"

Her lips curled upwards ever so slightly. "Mhmm..."

Even as she was on another plane of sleep, she couldn't help but smile when thinking of the year 1966, the night she had met the love of her life.

It was a Wednesday evening, at Menlo-Atherton High School; a day most parents kicked their teenagers out of the house in order to be sociable, make friends and just get out of the house; it was a youth group and although the adults there were more or less preaching the word of God, it didn't stop the troublemakers there. Along with them, there were some regular kids just looking to mingle and hangout.

"Robin, can you hold this for me? My stupid clip keeps falling out," Stevie handed her best friend her guitar.

Taking the handle, she watched the girl struggle with her hair. "Why don't you take it down? How come it's up like that anyway?" she wondered. "You hate it all up."

"My mom swears this is in and she really thinks this is how I wanna wear it and she said it would look nice," she unclipped the length of her hair, releasing her length to fall into loose ringlets while she smoothed down some of her beehive. "I was getting a headache too..." she sighed, dropping the pins into her sweater pocket.

Robin smirked. "Anyway, is David coming today?" she wondered of the girl's boyfriend.

"No, he has football practice. But I told my parents we were all going just so I could get out of watching Chris."

"Nice... My mom only let me come because she knew you were going..."

She giggled, walking into the building ahead of her friend, scouting around the room to see if she saw any other friends, and although she saw some people from time to time, it wasn't worth interrupting anybody's conversations in order to just say hi.

"This place sure is a gas," Robin said sarcastically. "You can't even hear the music..."

"There's no music, I hear somebody playing though," Stevie assured, leading the way to yet another room with less people.